It doen't matter how "strange' the accent of any Arab country (even Morocco) is, since in the Arabic schools (and even on TV etc.) EVERYONE speaks FUSHA. I know someone who learnt excellent Arabic in Tunisia. As for Saudi Arabic, then many exaggerate, their accent is not the best (in my opinion), in Mauretania and some places of Yemen even their dialect is much closer to Fusha then the Saudi one. In any case, you can't do anything wrong by going to any Arabic country, but from my experience, the cheapest (with one of the best teachers in the whole Arabic world) is Egypt. It's extremely cheap (including living) and full of foreigners and top teachers (even private ones).

I cant answer those questions, im not saudi official. Only know about this from my cousin who used to work at saudi embassy, only available for single guy like you I think. Just go and ask the saudi rep in your area.

Thanks for the info! Where can I find a Saudi rep? Right now I'm on the west coast, but I'm moving to the mid-West (middle of the U.S.) in a couple weeks.

If you want to go overseas, the University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia is prob one of the best out there imo. i'm very impressed with the level of Arabic of the students that i've seen go there.

I'll have a look inshaAllah. Do they offer the same type of scholarships as Umm al-Qura? Are there any advantages to Madinah over Makkah or Makkah over Madinah? I imagine Makkah would be more crowded because it's where Masjid al-Haraam is, but Madinah might be as well (but less so?)

The problem is that you have to get 2 (probably Salafi) Shaykhs to testify that you are "upon the Sunnah" so good luck with that lol. They might not consider you if the people recommending you have Shia names (esp something like "Sayyid Abdul Husayn Rizvi" or w/e lol)

Yeah, that's my problem lol. There's a good solid Sunni mosque where I'm moving and they're affiliated with CAIR, so maybe if I get involved there I can get at least one of my letters from them.

But yea Madinah University of Ummul Qura are the places to go. Not only are you in the holiest places of Islam, but the Saudi government really goes out of its way to pay for basically everything for you, plus the Arabic of the local people is way better than if you go to Egypt or almost any other country.

Yeah, that's a big plus. I've heard that the Gulf dialect is very easy to understand for non-Khaleeji Arabic speakers (kinda like Egyptian is always understood).

There's also the option of going to Najaf and studying both Islam and Arabic. However be aware that the Iraqi dialect has a lot of Persian influences (like Gulf countries other than Saudi in general) as well as some Turkish influences, as well as a bunch of weird random stuff that make no sense.

As far as I know, the Iraqi government isn't issuing any visas to foreigners except for Ziyarat. And I think all the Iraqi schools are closed to foreigners at the moment because of the war, but I could be wrong. I *do* want to learn the Iraqi dialect eventually (all my friends are Iraqi ... it's strange ... they all make jokes about marrying an Iraqi woman )

But tbh if you want to learn Fusha Arabic, you can do so in your home country. Alhamdulillah with the internet you can immerse yourself with Fusha as if you were living in the early days of the Islamic empire (whereas if you went to any Arabic country, you would be surrounded by the local dialect. But tbh the Saudi dialect is probably the closest imo)

Yeah, that's true but as I said in the original post, I'm a lazy bastard. If there isn't either a classroom setting with tests, or a need to use it in day-to-day life, I will completely slack off.

The language of India is Hindi (and a whole bunch of others) and in South Africa they speak Afrikaans and a few others. I would prefer to go to a country where I'm forced to use Arabic in day-to-day life so that I will have a big motivation to try harder.

Actually, I think Khomeini spoke fluent Arabic. He was just a nationalistic bastard and refused to speak Arabic with Arabs, he would have a translator. He was too "good" for dirty Arabic, had to use the "refined" Farsi.

It doen't matter how "strange' the accent of any Arab country (even Morocco) is, since in the Arabic schools (and even on TV etc.) EVERYONE speaks FUSHA. I know someone who learnt excellent Arabic in Tunisia. As for Saudi Arabic, then many exaggerate, their accent is not the best (in my opinion), in Mauretania and some places of Yemen even their dialect is much closer to Fusha then the Saudi one. In any case, you can't do anything wrong by going to any Arabic country, but from my experience, the cheapest (with one of the best teachers in the whole Arabic world) is Egypt. It's extremely cheap (including living) and full of foreigners and top teachers (even private ones).

Yeah, I've been thinking about Egypt too. It seems like a great destination. I'll probably look into that more if I can't get the scholarship from Al-Saud.

Update: I just e-mailed the Saudi Embassy and asked my questions to them. InshaAllah I can get the answers.

Anyways, I will most likely submit my application in a couple months. I am getting a legal name change right now (personal reasons) and will have to get all my documents (like school records and passport) over to the correct name before I can apply.

I cant answer those questions, im not saudi official. Only know about this from my cousin who used to work at saudi embassy, only available for single guy like you I think. Just go and ask the saudi rep in your area.

Thanks for the info! Where can I find a Saudi rep? Right now I'm on the west coast, but I'm moving to the mid-West (middle of the U.S.) in a couple weeks.

Google it or just look it up on whitepages. If you want to live in foreign country soon, try finding out stuff on your own. Just imagine this, you are most likely will be lost not knowing how to return to your boarding school & dont know how to ask for directions hahaha. You want free study, free accomodation, free ticket and now free personal service too? Come on, practise your survival skill now

Like ebn Hussein said, Egypt is cheap. My friend went there with his brother for 2 weeks I think and he almost spend nothing on money. ( he had Euro money so maybe that's why? :p)

Really? I would have thought he would be ripped off of all his money lol.[/font]

Feel sorry for egyptian, lots of people seems to have this stereotype about them being arrogant or sleazy. This arab has stereotype about that arab etc and we blame westerners for having muslim stereotype

Yeah, that's true but as I said in the original post, I'm a lazy bastard. If there isn't either a classroom setting with tests, or a need to use it in day-to-day life, I will completely slack off.

Brother if you're lazy here, what makes you think you'll work hard over there? How do you know you won't just isolate yourself on the English internet and just speak English with other ex-pats? Then you end up failing and coming right back to America?

i highly recommend watching this video:

This brother went through the same exact thing as you (and even thought he would get away with just learning Arabic in Saudi before he got a rude awakening)

As encouragement, imagine being able to understand the words of our Creator:

Google it or just look it up on whitepages. If you want to live in foreign country soon, try finding out stuff on your own. Just imagine this, you are most likely will be lost not knowing how to return to your boarding school & dont know how to ask for directions hahaha. You want free study, free accomodation, free ticket and now free personal service too? Come on, practise your survival skill now

Hey now, I never said I wanted those things. You're the one that said it was available

As for finding stuff out on my own, well, if I'm in Egypt, there will be a million friendlies that will help me out before I even ask for it and then demand I pay them politely ask for a tip

If in Saudi, well, I'm screwed because Saudis are major jerks (even the guy in the video that lotfilms posted says so)

Feel sorry for egyptian, lots of people seems to have this stereotype about them being arrogant or sleazy. This arab has stereotype about that arab etc and we blame westerners for having muslim stereotype

It's not a stereotype of Egyptians, bro. It's legit. They will do anything to make you part with your money. I don't blame them though because most of them are unemployed and need to feed their families.

Brother if you're lazy here, what makes you think you'll work hard over there? How do you know you won't just isolate yourself on the English internet and just speak English with other ex-pats? Then you end up failing and coming right back to America?

I get un-lazy when I'm in an actual school and whatnot. I'm only lazy when it comes to self-study. I do really really well in school, actually. The reason I left high school early was because I was so bored with it.